


Photographic Memories

by TheWritingFox



Series: The Sparky Chronicles [7]
Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27213886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWritingFox/pseuds/TheWritingFox
Summary: New information about Sparky's creator comes to light.
Series: The Sparky Chronicles [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1972690
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7





	Photographic Memories

Sparky was running through the corridors of Walter Manor, playing a game of tag with Rabbit. The eldest Walter automaton was good at this, Sparky noted, as the bigger robot skidded around a corner in front of her.

As the smaller automaton tried skidding around the corner as well, she over compensated and ended smacking full speed into the opposite wall of the hallway. She lands on her back with loud metallic thud. Slowly sitting back up, she shakes her head, feeling a little stunned. Looking down at her arm, she notices a small compartment on her forearm had popped open, she didn't even know she had that...

Some folded pieces of paper were in the compartment. She pulls them out gently and opens them in her lap. The largest paper was a blue print to what appeared to be her design. It wasn't the same one Peter Walter the Sixth had found, this one was updated with her present features, instead of just the rough idea of her structure. Folded inside the blueprint was a black and white photograph of a serious looking young man with a moustache, along with several newspaper clippings. One headline in particular caught her eye.

' _Nikola Tesla Dies at 85, Alone In His Hotel Suite'_

"That's not right", Sparky muses out loud, "he wasn't alone...", the newspaper clippings along with the photograph jogs something in her mind and a memory resurfaces.

**⚡⚡⚡⚡**

_The year was 1943. Her makers health had been failing for so long. The taxi car accident about 10 years previously didn't help either. She was with him throughout everything. His ideas had become more and more insane, the funding for said projects hadn't been coming in and most of his peers were now considering him a madman. He rarely left the hotel suite now, only to occasionally feed the pigeons in the park he had become so attached to. She had stayed in the suite, too many people had been startled by seeing an old man and a machine walk down the sidewalk together._

_The last time they had gone out together, they were jeered at. "There goes the loony with his toy!" "What a freak!", then laughing when she had started sparking from her ears in distress and frustration. She couldn't make him go through that again, especially if anyone in the crowd would throw anything at her, didn't want to risk an object meant for her, hitting her creator instead. So, in the suite she waited, and fretted until his return._

_Jan. 6th 1943, New York City. The New Yorker, A Wyndham Hotel._

_Making her creator comfortable in his bed for the night, she tucks the sheets around him gently. She had a notion deep inside her that he wasn't long for this world. He didnt want anything to eat or drink all day, and felt too exhausted to leave his bed. When she caught him looking at her, she pulls a bright smile on her face._

_"Otac*", she says gently, "do you want anything to eat now?"_

_He chuckles weakly. "No, Malisa, but I need to tell you something, my favorite pigeon died today, the beautiful white one", he nods sadly, "I saw the light fade from her eyes, much brighter than even electricity"._

_'That was about twenty years ago', she notes to herself._

_"I'm sorry to hear that Otac, but I'm sure she's somewhere better now", she soothes._

_"Perhaps", he says, then blinks at her with a sudden clarity. "Malisa", he says urgently, "listen to me, this is very important. There is a letter, in the desk drawer, read it when I'm gone"._

_"Don't talk like that", she says, "you're gonna be fine. Just rest up", she smiles._

_The old man smiles back at her wearily. "The letter, Malisa don't forget. Promise me", he insists._

_"I won't forget", the small robot assures him and he sighs, satisfied with her answer and falls asleep against his pillows._

_She goes about tidying the suite, concern weighing heavily on her mind. Afterwards, she sits on a chair in the corner and goes into stand by, a sort of rest mode._ _A cough wakes her up some time later, the room was still dark. By her internal estimate of time, it was around two in the morning._

_"Malisa", her makers voice rasps._

_The automaton is by his side immediately, turning on the bedside lamp and carefully pouring him a glass of water from the bedside table then offering the cup to him. He only accepts a few sips before laying back down._

_"You were my greatest achievement", he gazes up at her with tired eyes. She gives his hand a reassuring gentle squeeze as he closes his eyes with a sigh, seemingly relieved. He lets go of her hand and remains still, too still. Optics widening in alarm, she checks for a heart beat by laying her head on his still chest. Silence._

_"Nononono", she whispers, "No, Otac. Please....don't leave me alone....", gray coolant tears trail down her goldish copper face, leaving gray smudges along the silver markings on her cheeks._

_For what seemed like hours, she wept at his passing. Pain she'd never felt before crackles through her system as warm gray coolant bubbles in her optics, blurring her vision. Straightening up with a sniffle she forces herself away from the bedside and follows her maker's wish by reading the letter from the desk drawer._

_The letter contained instructions to be followed by his creation in the event of his death. He expressed his concern of her being purchased by people with cruel intentions when his property would be sold, most people still would consider her a "thing". She could very well be sold off with his other inventions. He listed an address of a fellow inventor by name of Peter A.Walter of the Walter Robotics fame, that she should seek out. She would be safe there, he assured her in the letter. The enclosed blueprints with the letter detailed everything about the little automaton. She carefully tucked both papers into a small compartment on her forearm._

_The next few days went by in a blur. The newspapers reported the death of the once famous and brilliant inventor. Rumors spread like wildfire about his state of mind before his death, and where some of his creations would be sold off to. Carefully concealing herself in public, the little automaton bought a newspaper for herself and cut out the more respectful reports._

_She procured a large crate to be sent to Walter Manor. The letter had suggested mailing herself there, to avoid any trouble and to prevent anyone from stopping her. The time came for the crate to be shipped, and she carefully slipped inside. The crate was large enough for her to sit down in with her knees tucked to her chest._

_With the pounding of hammers, the crate was sealed and shipped. Her maker didn't count on how long or delayed his creations journey may be. The delivery took longer, at some points getting lost in transit and experiencing rough handling while it was loaded onto a train to be sent across the country to its destination._

_The automaton remained as quiet as she could during the journey, opting to go into stand by for as long as possible. The crate became claustrophobic after awhile, and she dreaded powering back up in its dark confined space. She wept coolant tears and sparked from her ears in distress far too often in that hellish space, cursing her creator for leaving her._

_Eventually her coolant levels ran too low to maintain her circuits and fuses. Her system began shutting down non-essential operations like motor functions and speech, she could no longer wipe away the coolant gumming up her eyelids, they remained shut. Now it was truly dark, and oh so lonely. Her hearing remained operational for longer but eventually that too was shut down by her system to preserve that last, life giving spark._

_At long last, the crate reached its destination. Delivered to Walter Manor, the crate was in surprisingly good condition as it was taken inside by the Walter Worker staff. As usual, the Manor was chaotic and with a dismissive order, the crate was put into a storage room in the Manor, with the intent of opening it later._

_Later, turned out to be years. Being shut down for that long takes a toll, memories of her personality were lost in the process, leaving her with a fragmented past and a mysterious present._

_It would be 74 years until the little automaton would open her blue optics to the sight of a larger Walter bot by name of Rabbit, gently keeping her upright and gazing at her with a kindly glow in her mismatched blue and green optics. The same Walter bot who would give her the fond nickname of Sparky. And so, her journey to rediscover herself would begin._

**⚡⚡⚡⚡**

"Sparky? Sparky?", a voice asks, "are ya al-ri-right?" Sparky opens her optics, looking up at Rabbit's concerned face.

"Rabbit? What happened?" The smaller copper bot sits up from the floor, the papers still in her lap.

"I turned around and you had slammed into the w-w-wall! Then you fizzled out and got real warm after ya l-lo-looked at those papers", Rabbit explains, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. 

"I-I remember my maker", Sparky explains to her friend, "the memories are fuzzy, but there", she smiles, tears falling in joy as she continues to explain, "he didn't hate me and throw me away!"

After explaining her trip down memory lane to Rabbit, the two robots decide to gather the rest of the family and tell them what Sparky experienced. The newly uncovered blueprints would certainly help her and solve some mysteries about her design.

According to the date on the blueprints Sparky was built October 14th, 1890, one of Nikola Tesla's experiments for a being run entirely on wireless electricity. She only required an occasional plug in to an electric source if her battery ever ran critically low, and could run almost indefinitely if she remained operational and able to move around to charge her battery.

Sparky was one of the only creations Tesla made blueprints for later, due to her uniqueness. He guarded those blueprints fiercely and scrubbed most evidence of her existence from the public eye, after realizing he brought a now living, thinking being into existence. She became on of his most intricate creations, both inside and out.

Later it seemed Tesla regarded Sparky, then named Malisa (Serbian for Little One), as his robotic child, teaching her not only English but a bit of Serbian, Latin and French. In the next months after her creation and into the spring of the following year, he gave her several upgrades which included hair and finer motor function. He may have lived a lonely life, but with his Malisa he would never truly be alone.

With this new information, the copper bot felt whole in a way, without that cloud of fear and doubt that hung over her head. She had a glimpse of who she was in the past. Granted, some gaps still existed in her memory but with such an important piece of the puzzle revealed, more of her memories seemed within her grasp. 

_Sparky no longer feared her past, she knew her family at Walter Manor would help her through it._

**Author's Note:**

> *Otac means father in Serbian* 
> 
> Nikola Tesla was a fascinating person, I highly recommend doing your own research on him. Fun fact: the year I chose for Sparky's creation, the Fall of 1890, was actually a sort of empty year for Tesla's timeline, but it ties in nicely because in the following years he started more experiments in wireless electricity.


End file.
